Monday, October 29, 2012

College Access Grant at YHS

Do you dream of a college education, but just don’t know how to make it happen? Thanks to a grant provided to YHS by Education Quest and local community support, YHS students now have an opportunity to explore area colleges through school-sponsored college visits and application assistance.

The first school-sponsored visit took place on Tuesday, October 23. Guidance Counselor Tami Wegener took 42 students to UNL where the students were welcomed by college admissions representatives who gave them tours of the campus, residence halls, Multicultural Center and Greek Row.

Students ate in one of the campus dining halls before touring one of the nearby college dorms. In the afternoon, the students attended an informative session on selecting the right college for their goals. UNL may or may not be the right college for an individual. College representatives urged students to evaluate their goals and choose the college that is the best fit for them. Students should consider their interests, the size of the institution, the size of the community, as well as other factors. Colleges are not one-size-fits-all institutions. Students should do their research and make the decision that is going to be the best for them and their future.

The next college visit will be on Thursday, November 15 to the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

The grant that YHS received aims to increase the number of students from YHS who attend college. Besides the school-sponsored college visits, the Guidance Office is organizing open lab time for seniors. In these open lab sessions, seniors may complete college entrance and scholarship applications with counselor-assistance.

Any student interested in finding out more about these opportunities, should contact his or her guidance counselor.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Staying Connected with State Senators

York Public Schools is fortunate to be able to interact with two wonderful state senators in the upcoming weeks. On November 5th, York's own Senator Greg Adams will visit our Career Academies and interact with some of our students to hear from their perspectives what they like about these college-like opportunities. On November 12th, Senator Amanda McGill will be here to visit our SELF Program at YES and YMS and to interact with administrators and staff. Senator McGill is leading a state-wide study to see if Nebraska is offering enough support for students with behavior issues and mental health needs. We are fortunate to have hard-working state senators that are willing and able to visit schools, hear from students and staff, and that truly care about education in our great state!

Friday, October 12, 2012

7th Grade Book Talks

Book talks in the 7th grade Teen Literature class have taken on a new twist with the help of iMovie, a program loaded on the new iPads. This program allows students to create and produce book trailers. The first step in the creation of a book trailer is to select the book to share. Next the students plan out each slide of their trailer, using a media presentation rubric. Once completed, the book trailers will be shared with other students to help them in selecting new books to read.

When asked to give feedback on the new program, these were some of the comments; “It’s cool," “It’s so much more fun than the regular book talk," “I love that we can act in them too," and “I like that we get to be creative with technology."

The iPads have also been a useful tool when learning and practicing new vocabulary words, affixes and roots. With the new iPad carts, each student has the opportunity to access various websites and programs using their own iPad. No matter what the activity, using the iPads is increasing motivation and engagement. Definite thumbs up!

Great job by the students and staff at YMS!!!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Community Coffee "News and Notes"

We had over 25 people attend our 1st Quarter Community Coffee on October 2nd. We discussed several district-wide updates and then took a tour of the high school facility project. Some of the items we discussed include:

* Our "Last Friday in September" K-12 enrollment was reported at 1,223. This is an increase from the 1,191 students we had in September 2011.

* http://striv.tv/channel/york-dukes-live/ is a website you can log onto to see York Duke varsity activities and concerts on-line. This is a new service we began providing last month.

* YPS will be offering a FREE technology workshop about "Twitter" on October 29th at 7 PM for anyone that wants to attend.

Go Dukes!

Mike Lucas